If your company is not involved with construction (but just design or inspection), make sure the contract states that the construction contractor is responsible for site safety, not the “engineer” or your company.

There should also be clauses so your company is also indemnified.

The construction means and methods and related safety should be the responsibility of the construction contractor. This must be in writing in the contract.

Your company should be included as additional insured on the contractor’s general liability insurance.

Liability coverage should define who it specifies as being covered. If it covers the “engineer” your company must document and include that it includes your company as well.

Tagged with: indemnify • insurance • liability

Filed under: Construction • Contract • Contractors • Documentation • Risk • Safety • Scope

If, in your contract, the client instructs you to directly pass on the cost of consultants, it would be better to have the consultants contract directly with the client instead of with your company.

This is especially important when the client specifies which consultant to use.

For example, ground drilling and soils analysis.

If you are not getting paid to manage and review their work, then the client should contract with them themselves.

Tagged with: consultant

Filed under: Client • Contract • Contractors • Cost

In a contract, your company should make sure the document indicates that you will rely on information and materials supplied by the client. E.g. surveys, soil tests, reports.

If the client will not agree to this, you should make sure the contract allows money for adequate review by your company of the client supplied documents.

This is particularly important for old drawings, locations of underground cables or pipes, status of old tanks or equipment.

The client may not be able to guarantee the status of the old plant, so your company should be paid for work involved in reviewing or re-surveying.

Tagged with: review

Filed under: Client • Contract • Cost • Documentation • Scope

If your company is the design contractor but not involved in the construction phase you should instruct the client to notify you for your company’s input for any design discrepancies.

If your company has designed something but the field conditions on site mean a change is needed, the client or their contractor may try to back charge your company for the design changes they had to do on site.

You should include language in the contract that they must first give you the option of giving input before proceeding with changes that may result in back charges to your company.

Tagged with: back charges • Construction • design discrepancies

Filed under: Client • Contract • Contractors • Design

Get any contracts reviewed by your company legal council before submittal and especially before signing.

This should especially include liability, indemnity, insurance, and liquidated damages clauses.

Tagged with: legal

Filed under: Contract

Get sub consultant agreement on tender documents.

When you are bidding for a tender and you are getting prices from sub consultants, make sure the sub gets a copy of the tender documents and agrees with them (or the relevant section) in writing before submitting them and their price to the client.

It is important that the agreement is in writing.

If you don’t get this agreement, the sub consultant may change their prices or conditions once they see the details of the tender.

Tagged with: agreement • sub consultant

Filed under: Contract • Contractors • Tender

Make sure that the contract specifies the length of time allowed for approvals or decisions.

When drawings or documents are sent to the client for approval, you need to know (and specify) when they will be approved.

Allow for this time in your plan, and make sure the client knows this is in the plan.

Be sure that the contract specifies what will happen if approvals are delayed beyond the specified time (extra payments, extensions of time, etc).

Tagged with: approval

Filed under: Client • Communication • Contract • Planning • Time

Make sure that you and your company agree with the contract, if you don’t, change it.

Even if you have worked with the client before or know them well and they have previously been lenient on clauses, don’t count on that in the future.

The client PM may change or they may have a change of staff (who don’t know you).

They may be bought out or have control changed and be told to enforce contracts completely.

Your work should always be conducted as per the contract language.

Assume the client will want to enforce that (even if they don’t or haven’t in the past).

Tagged with: contract language • enforce

Filed under: Client • Contract

Make sure to include a precedence clause in the specifications.

You should define which documents or sections take precedence. That way if there are errors or conflicts, one will take precedent.

Don’t put detail of the same work in more than one place. It is better to not repeat the same information but a precedence clause should still be put in place.

As the project manager, you should also be aware of the precedence in documents you have received from the client.

Tagged with: conflicts • errors • precedence • specifications

Filed under: Contract • Documentation

I find that having liquidated damages in a contract from my client helps me as a project manager.

Companies often want to avoid having liquidated damages in the contract.

However, as a project manager, I find it is a lot easier to get resources within the company to assist with the completion of a project if there are liquidated damages or penalties for late completion in the contract.

This makes senior management take the project more seriously. They are then less likely to reallocate resources away from your project and are more likely to give you resources to your project when requested.

Tagged with: liquidated damages • resources

Filed under: Contract • Risk